A football match takes 90 minutes.

Lawo’s mc²90 for ORF’s HDTV control room.

Another great sports year has begun! One of the most important highlights of 2008 will take place in June — the UEFA Euro 2008, being held in Austria and Switzerland. This impressive sports and media spectacle is already in the advanced planning stage, as are the ORF, Austria’s national public broadcaster, who are upgrading to cope with the new technical requirements. With this in mind, the ORF have ordered Lawo’s flagship console — the mc²90 — for their RP 11 sports control room and studio. Delivery is scheduled for February, followed by installation in March; system testing will take place in May.

The special challenge this year for the ORF will be to broadcast the UEFA Euro 2008 matches in HDTV format. This requires rebuilding the broadcaster’s two existing sports SCRs and equipping them with the latest technology. Following this upgrade, the RP 11 control room will become ORF’s first fixed-installation HDTV studio. ORF chose the Lawo mc²90 because it was essential that they had the most reliable desk fit for independent operation by two sound engineers, but without any technical compromises.

The 24+8+24 fader console provides 336 fully equipped DSP channels and 10 DALLIS I/O frames with fiber-optic and port redundancy connections to the central router frame. The console control surface will be provided with user-specified options according to the ORF’s requirements.

Reinhard Tomek, ORF’s project manager explains: “With this new HDTV control room and the mc²90 console, the ORF will be able to meet the challenge of new technology in the coming years. With Lawo, we have found a competent and well-acknowledged partner for this project.”